Governmental elections in the United States utilize a variety of subsystems to distribute ballots that individual voters use to record voted selections. For example, one type of subsystem uses paper ballots that are mailed to the voter who marks the ballot and then returns the ballot through the mail. Mailed ballots have been historically reserved for absentee voting and may be associated with additional documents, such as voting instructions or affidavits. For example, some jurisdictions may require absentee voters to sign an affidavit affirming the fact that they will be outside the boundaries of the election authority jurisdiction on election day. Over the last several years there has been a trend to relax the absentee requirement by allowing individuals who prefer to vote by mail to participate in an election through the mail without being absent from the jurisdiction. In fact, entire elections are being conducted exclusively “by-mail,” including an Oregon state law that requires all elections to be conducted in this manner.
The growth of by-mail voting and elections has increased the volume of piece mail that must be produced and handled by a jurisdiction. Any one election can contain hundreds, even thousands, of different ballot styles to account for the individual eligibility of voters within a jurisdiction. The management of by-mail subsystems becomes further complicated when multiple language requirements are added. Furthermore, there is limited amount of time available to produce, deliver and process the return mail. There may be as few as thirty days between the time the ballots are approved for distribution and the time by which all returned ballot must be processed. As the number of by-mail ballots increase, the complexity and difficulty of producing a large number of mail pieces in a short amount of time reaches daunting levels. Established processing systems, such as manual systems, tend to break down under these increased loads. The breakdown of services may be exacerbated by the fact that elections are held only periodically, so that there may be a lack of continuity of staffing and experience between different elections.
The production and processing of by-mail ballots has historically been performed manually or has been contracted out to facilities that specialize in mail handling. Each voter is required to receive a specific ballot in relation to his or her demographic location, e.g., a residence within a voting precinct within which all ballots are alike. Elections can have in excess of one thousand different precincts. This circumstance results in the generation of thousands of different ballot styles, which must be manually packaged. By-mail balloting systems require a legion of people who bring along the human error associated with such an effort. Specialized mail handling facilities must also manage their processing by precinct or even at a sub-precinct level, and this is done by creating individual production runs. Each production run increases overhead and introduces additional probability for error.
Unique challenges exist in bringing a level of automation to the production of packaged ballots. In order to achieve a desired level of automation, management of packaging of the correct ballot style to targeted voter must break the sub-precinct layer. Current systems are unable to manage mail at the sub-precinct or ballot-specific level, as opposed to precinct level management in use according to current practices.
Electronic systems that permit direct entry of votes have improved to the point where voters may be provided with ballots that are custom made according to voter eligibility to vote in a selected list of elections within a precinct, for example, as described and shown in U.S. Pat. No. 6,250,548 to McClure et al., which is hereby incorporated by reference to the same extent as though fully disclosed herein. Improvements in early voting, for in-person voting processes, have been achieved through the use of direct recording electronic (DRE) systems that support multiple precincts simultaneously and allows ballot styles to be assigned to specific voters as required. Automated packaging of by mail ballots must possess the same type of capability in order to produce a significant improvement in existing processes, but the present systems in place for this purpose lack capability to perform the job with the requisite reliability and flexibility.
An examination of automated mail processing industry techniques reveals no available existing method that solves the unique challenges associated with packaging by-mail ballots that are managed at the ballot level for an election. While a voter must receive a specific ballot, election law prohibits the voter's name from appearing on the ballot. Therefore, if a voter is incorrectly mailed a ballot that is intended for another individual, there is some likelihood that the error may never be noticed. The closest functional mail processing capability is exemplified by bills or invoices produced for credit cards or utilities, and targeted advertising where the content is sent to a specific recipient. This capability relies on the ability to print the recipient's name directly on the mail piece which is then inserted in a windowed envelop displaying the correct name. Printing the name along with the content on the same sheet provides a 100% guarantee that the relationship is correct. It is generally infeasible to produce ballots that are mailed in this manner because by law the voter must remain anonymous in most instances. Specifically, the voter's name cannot be printed on the ballot that is returned to the election authority. Prohibiting the name and content from appearing on the ballot introduces a processing requirement that has not been previously solved.